Which was the last game you finished?

[grim-one]

[Charly]

Lord of the Rings: War in the North

It is not perfect, but so much fun. My sister and I played the entire game in split-screen co-op and had a blast. Pretty solid Action RPG, and a treat if you are a LotR fan (though pronunciation of names and places seemed off to me).

I played as Farin, the dwarven Champion, and loved smashing through orcs and sending them flying. My sister played as Andriel, the Elven Loremaster, and she spent a lot of time healing (me) but was able to do a lot of damage in her own right. I loved the presence of the Great Eagles too, both in battle and in story. <3

My only real issue with the game was that I couldn't switch characters on the fly or more specifically, equip armor/weapons on the other characters. The Ranger, Eradan, could be given gear we picked up, but we couldn't check his current gear, compare and then upgrade. We just sent gear over and if he didn't suddenly start wearing it we assumed he had better stuff already and we lost our item and thus the moolah we could have sold it for (not that money was ever an issue). Now that I think about it, you could switch characters at 'chapter' ends and on the title screen, but I never did so. Perhaps you could pinch your loot back that way? Eh.

If you are looking for a fun co-op game, maybe give Lord of the Rings: War in the North a shot. It is definitely one of the more enjoyable gaming experiences I have had of recent.
_________________

[Guffers]

Arkham City: As DC geek it was brilliant. It hindsight I liked the first game a little more but I can't decide whether or not that is due to the shock of it being so good in the first place!

I have very little in the way of criticism for AC, the combat is brilliant, the atmosphere is fantastic and it excells at providing a superb amalgamation of Nolan's realism and the comic book's hyper reality.

Hearing Nolan North as a henchman was jarring but his version of the Penguin was inspired.

[sithsylar]

Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition

Loved every minute of it. Way way better then Resident evil 5 imho. I really felt the horror of having limited ammo with so many zombies/infected enemies. The boss fights were pretty epic as well tho i laughed at one when one rocket launcher missle killed it instantly. Really can't wait to play it the second time and unlock other stuff .
_________________

[WarAdept]

Yeah the Wii version of RE4 is brilliant. Has all of the PS2 versions extras with the GC's better graphics/sound/load times. (Load times on PS2 were horrid).

The tank and shoot gameplay is perfect for the Wii-remote. And yeah, the Rocket Launcher is always a one hit kill regardless of enemy. The thing I love most about it is that it has quite a bit of endgame and unlockable content. Extra weapons, costumes and whatnot for the main game, Ada's supporting campaign Separate Ways and then there's Mercenaries.

Too much fun. I'm playing RE: Revelations now, and it definitely feels much closer to RE4 (with a bit of RE1 and 2 injected).

[Frozencry]

Pineapple Smash Crew

I had so much fucking fun playing this game. It's very simplistic in that you go through torn up spaceships doing simple missions like wiping an alien infestation, finding artifacts or destroying toxic waste, but all levels are randomly generated and can get really lengthy depending on your pathways. It's basically cannon fodder in space and you have crazy grenades, with more unlocked as you collect donut hertz to level up.

After the end of each mission your characters get individual exp too and level up, increasing armour and health. It's minor stuff but is incentive for keeping your whole team alive, as once one dies he's completely gone and you automatically get a new one at the starting level. There was a lot of heartbreak when one of my boys which I named died after over an hours worth of playing

The game is obscenely fun. There's lots of different enemies and situations in which positioning and good grenade usage is required. It allows you to get really fucking creative too; for example you can get a vortex grenade which sucks in bullets and enemies but doesn't kill them. Throw it under a door with red hot lasers pulsating out of it though and it turns into a vacuum that rapes everything that gets sucked in. It's simple in design but gameplay is dynamic and constantly engaging.

The music and visuals are also awesome as hell. It's pixelated and blocky by design and it looks great because of it. Explosions look amazing and the music is totally chiptune and reminds me of Megaman and other old school games.

TL;DR, if you're a fan of Cannon Fodder and really fun bursts of adrenaline filled action you must buy this immediately. It's super fun.

Overall: 2/100

Also gameplay and music hnng

_________________

[theory]

2/100 for a game you seemingly love?
_________________

[Ciel]

[topaz]

It took 90 hours over a span of 5 months, but Xenoblade is finally done! The final area takes a while, so make sure you have a good 2 hours to spare before moving on from the point of no return. The final boss gave me serious problems on my first attempt, so I grinded for a few levels and managed to take him down on my second try. It's been an awesome journey from start to end. The world and its different locations were a blast to explore and a feast for the eyes, Wii graphics and all, which makes it more impressive imo.
_________________

[Benza]

So I knocked over
Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 Shippuden
which... god that's a mouthful of a name and I'm pretty sure I got it wrong.

Gonna be a bit long here cause I'm comparing it to the show too.

First things first, I'm not that big a fan of the show, I watched the first series when they're kids and the pacing is horrendous and never watched after the time skip until recently. It's a decent enough show killed by fucking abhorrent pacing.

Overall I'd have to rate it as one of the best licensed games I've played, and far fare better then a licensed adaptation of a mediocre anime has any right to be.

Basically the game presents itself like a PS1 era JRPG, static backgrounds, with characters running through them, talking to people, getting quests to do , going into a new screen for battles etc. At first I was a little dissapointed by this going from the first game being a free roaming open area game. But after playing it it really opens up the game a lot more. The first game basically had you stuck in the leaf village choosing fights from a menu that happened all over the place, this game actually has you traveling around to the different villages meeting people there and in general gives a lot more context to the story.
And the story is surprisingly one of the strongest aspects.

Basically it takes the basic story of the show and skips the crap. While playing it I figured I should start watching the show as well. Got up to Naruto fighting Orochimaru.
For comparison that fight takes place about 3 or 4 hours into the game.
That fight takes place forty two episodes into the show. The game manages to condense fights that take place over 10 episodes or more into a single boss fight that usually don't last more then 10-15 minutes.
Add to that the show suffers typical anime budget issues where they blow there load on a single fight scene and then have nothing to back up the rest of the show. This is most obvious in the show around the 10vs100 puppet fight. That actual fight has some great animation, but it leaves the rest of the fights happening at the time to reuse like 5 seconds of animation constantly. It's just... bad. The game on the other hand obviously doesn't have that problem since the fights are all game play. But it still has the whole blowing it's load on boss fights.

And oh shit, the boss fights. Man this is where the game really shines, the normal fights are fun and all, basically playing off the same formula as the first one, but the boss fights are just awesome. Basically they play out starting off with a typical fight, then you get a quick time event, then you get basically a custome game type made for that specific fight. Ranging from straight up fights, fighting giants, rail shooters, a stationary turret shooting segment, group fights with three people at once etc etc. Everyone is different and every one is awesome.

Also fuck me dead those quick time events have some of the best 3D animation I've ever seen. The actual character models and shit aren't the best, the cel shading looks poor compared to the first one and they're really not that detailed. But man when they get moving, the super fluid animation combined with some awesome effects for dust, water and fire and shit look fucking amazing.

Add to that the backgrounds in a lot of the static scenes aren't entirely static. They have a little bit of movement that I really enjoyed, it can be pretty subtle in some scenes but little things like a camera pan over a static background are really helped by things like fore ground objects being on a different layer and moving slightly different time wise really helps sell the depth.

There is also a surprising amount of creativity on display here from cyber connect. On top of the variety of game types on display in the boss fights there are a fair few little things that really surprised me.

One of my faviourte bits was in a fight between Naruto and Sasuke, basically it's the first time they've seen each other in like 3 years and the last time they saw each other with the climax fight of the previous series.

Through the fight they both are talking about there last fight, then the fight begins to swap seamlessly from the current fight your having into a flashback of the fight they had when they were kids while never taking control away from you. There are a couple of moments like that when it shows you something that would normally be a cutscene (And the game isn't shy about cutscenes) that it lets you continue to play. It was moments like that that really elevated it above your typical adaptation for me.

Unfortunately the game is not without it's problems.

The backtracking is fucking obscene. There is a lot of it, couple that with the general emptiness of the world bar little collectibles that quickly become meaningless. After you beat the game you unlock the ability to buy warp scrolls to fast travel places, but dear god this needed to be in the game proper. A lot of the game is spent wandering from place to place with little to do in between besides jumping a lot.

Also the game loves loading. It does it constantly and they're not fast load times. There are moments in the game where I'd get a loading screen into a loading screen into a third loading screen. That is not a thing that should happen. The three loading screens thing wasn't even a one time thing. What the shit is going on there?

Also, these games need to stop locking the playable characters until you beat the game, having a couple of unlockables is fine, but we're talking more then half the characters are locked. They're fun games to muck around and play with mates, and I usually have a good couple of games with my house mate but having like 50% of the characters unavailable at the beginning is just fucked up.

Overall, if you're a fan of Naruto you should have this game, it's serious quality. Hell even if you're not a fan I'd say you'd probably be able to enjoy this game.

Also got me fucking hype for Asuras Wrath.
_________________

[Frozencry]

^These thoughts reflect on what I love so much about some DBZ games. I'm a DBZ fanboy straight out, so Tenkaichi Budokai 2 and DBZ Budokai 3 were nerdgasms for me. Still play them heaps and am awaiting my copy of Raging Blast 2 to arrive right now.

Skips a lot of the filler and goes straight into the mountain punching, planet destroying combat. Will have to look into Naruto for gaming but man I fucking hate Naruto.
_________________

[Jeremy]

[Benza]

well apparently generations is just going to be fight, cutscene repeat with more boss fights the shippuden, so that should be awesome.
_________________

[Gamesta]

Batman Arkham City


It's not special like BAA but it's still a great game.In fact it was so fun that I played it for about 12-14 hours straight and finished it in two sittings.I did a fair few side missions/collectables while playing the story.
_________________
Welcome to the internet. Where any joke can turn into WWIII.

[PixieGirl]

Alpha Protocol (PC)

What I liked:

The combat can be quite fun for an RPG. It was also nice playing an RPG set in modern day. Choices have a considerable impact. Visuals, although bland, are striking with the use of a strong sharpening effect around edges which was a little different than usual AA and which I thought looked pretty good and I'd like to see more games make use of it.

What I didnt:

Interface is unoptimized for PC. Cover mechanics are buggy. Stealth (the general way I approached the gameplay) doesn't often meld so well with the AI. Story isn't the most interesting and I lost track of it towards the end. Horrible boss fights which I cheated through because I refused to deal with them. "Suave" James-Bond-style dialogue choices almost invariably make Mike sound like a complete creep regardless of the conversation topic. Short for an RPG (finished at 11 hours)

Conclusion:

For $2 on the Steam Christmas sale it was totally worth it. Twas okay. Nice to play another Western RPG with gameplay that is focused and involving despite its clumsiness.

3 sprinkles of Pixie dust out of 5
_________________

[emech]

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

As far as game play is concerned, having a move undo on some of the puzzles, rather than a complete puzzle reset would have helped with some puzzles but otherwise puzzles were a good challenge, requiring thought but not frustratingly so BUT the story outcome was nowhere as strong as in the curious village. Things like that just don't work to that scale. Was disappointed.
_________________

[Tsargrad]

Uncharted: Golden Abyss

An amazing game. Utilises the Vita in many ways. I'd rate it as the 2nd best in the series after Uncharted 2, and really reminded me of Drake's Fortune, in look and style.

And I still only got 12% of the trophies, so gonna be alot of gaming left in this title for me.
_________________

[LeonJ]

Super Mario 3D Land.

Finished it the game with 4 stars (1 to go finishing it all with Luigi). Great game, Nintendo really made awesome use of both the 3D and lack of a camera option. Level design was incredible and it was a great return to form for a traditional 3D mario game.

Took me around 15 hours to do it all, so it was a great little adventure. Looking forward to the sequel this year!
_________________
Shin J Leon.

XBL - LeonJ
PSN - LeonJ

[Jarrod]

[PixieGirl]

The Darkness II (PC)

What I liked:

A lot of people won't agree, but I preferred the linear nature of this game, to the mock open nature of the first game, it gave it much more focus and I hated the side missions in the first game. Also, this might partly be because I was using a PC this time around, but shooting things is so much more fluid, it was a bit iffy to control in the first game even for a console FPS.

The cell shaded art style was interesting and weirdly suits the game quite well. Although the gore made me cringe its never cheap and always shocking, which is helped by superb scripted sequences. I also really liked the voice acting, which is excellent, and really helps keep you involved in the story which is the best I've experienced in a game in a while and kept me very, very, hooked.

No world war 1 levels, oh thank the heavens O_O. They are replaced by something a little different which I'm not going to spoil but involves no combat and makes you question whats real in the overall story and what isn't. These scenes are really nice additions to the game.

What I didnt:

Very short. Basic AI again. Also wasn't keen on all the enemies with flashlights, they can get very annoying and disrupt the flow of gameplay, and they are frequent.

Conclusion:

Much better than the previous game. I was hooked from start to finish (which sadly wasn't very long). If only this game was twice as long it could possibly be one of the best games of 2012.

4 sprinkles of Pixie dust out of 5
_________________

[ObsoletE]

[Coltaine]

Mass Effect 2

7/10

The combat was improved from ME. The story, lore and characters are still generic and cliche. Less side quests and motive for exploration than in ME, but side quests do have more depth, especially those of team members. Disliked the lack of customization regarding equipment. I miss the different armour sets, multitude of weapons and types of ammo in ME, as opposed to having almost no alternative armour without DLC, maybe 10 different weapons, and like 5 ammo types as "powers".

"Choices" are still far less than subtle and the illusion of being in control of decision making hurts. You still go either Paragon or Renegade. There is no inbetween. And I really hate how the game forces this on you. It's not as bad as in ME, though, where you have to go one way completely in order to experience all content and achievements. Less so in ME2, but it's still very real.

All in all, I'm excited to play ME3, but it's not going to be a first-day purchase.
_________________

[Jarrod]

ME2's shift in inventory/equipment is a weird one for me. The actual idea behind it, more functionally different weapons over a bottomless spreadsheet of junk, was something I much preferred. ME1 had a lot of stuff, but it was a poorly conceived idea due to how quickly so much of it became obsolete. It's a problem a lot of RPGs have, throwing in loot dumps and trying to pass it off as role playing.

But at the same time ME2 went a bit too extra, thinning out too much. The idea was there, but the execution felt a bit bare bones and lacking weapon development, variety and customisation.

ME3 seems like the perfect hybrid, from what I've seen. Still leaning towards the equipment style of ME2, but with gun levelling and customisation, and simply more weapons to find in general.
_________________

[IISpacebreakII]

[Jarrod]

Finished The Darkness II. All in all, this game will go down with Bulletstorm and, to a lesser extent, Singularity, as one of the better pure run-and-gun first person shooters of this generation that most people ignored. Pros and cons.

Pros before hoes:

- Extremely satisfying gunplay. The sound, weight, animation, kick back and visual/audio feedback from every shot and impact was basically perfect. It felt fucking good to simply shoot stuff. Sharp, punchy crackle of gunfire, gutsy splatter of gore, and great visual effects that made it feel like you were really ripping everything to shreds. Satisfying gunplay is the number one priority of every first person shooter, especially a run and gun shooter, and The Darkness II nailed it.

- As with the above, the integration of darkness powers into the combat scheme is smooth and accessible. Juggling between picking up garbage to use as a shield or weapon, slashing, and performing executions while also shooting and managing your guns was never tedious or clumsy. Good stuff.

- Gorgeous art. The game looked really stunning and nailed the 'comic book' vibe. Fantastic use of colours and contrasting tones, pencil sketch textures and pen outline. I fucking loved the look of the game and the way the artist imagined each environment. Very distinct and original, and pleasing to the eyes. Pretty lively character animation too.

- The soundtrack, while subtle, was something I really enjoyed. Good mood setters during the slower sections, and a great backing soundtrack when you're blowing stuff up.

- Despite being heavily scripted, something I usually dislike, the narrative was consistently engaging and interesting, largely thanks to a water tight script and some of the best voice acting I've seen in a game for some time. Characters were convincing and authentic, and not a single line seemed out of place. The lead up to set pieces and important plot points never dragged or felt bloated with information run-downs. Scripty shooter developers should take note, because this is how you create a great, enjoyable narrative.

- I liked the story. Simple, interesting, and had good hooks to keep me playing and guessing. It took it's basic premise and ran with it, never bloating it into something more than it is, nor rushing through important exposition. The ending was a bit abrupt, but I guess they're leaving room for another game, it it did make sense in the context of events (it was also quite predictable ).

Cons:

- Worst FOV in the history of FOVs. It was like I was looking down a scope for the entire game. Goddamnit game, who do you think you are, Killzone?

- Very, very short. Consistently fun, but yeah, very short.

- Wasn't too big of a fan of the 'stealth' sections. They played well enough, weren't tedious and offered a nice twist, but I didn't really care for them. Didn't dislike them, but yeah, I wouldn't miss them if they were gone.

- Flash light dudes were a bit annoying from time to time. I liked the dynamic they introduced to encounters, but there were a few moments where the AI seemed to bug out and a flash light guy and a solder would camp at a single chock point. Once I was out of ammo when this happened, and I was pretty much screwed until I found something to throw and kinda glitched the game to get the shot in.

- I thought most of the encounters were well designed, as the levels were more or less funnelled, but there was one or two where enemy spawns came from behind and other unexpected entry points, which lead to a little bit of trial-by-error gameplay, which is not good. Few and far between though, so not a huge complaints.

Otherwise I cant really think of anything else. Very short game, but I thought it was sublime. Felt good to shoot stuff, the action was exciting, darkness powers worked well, gorgeous graphics and excellent presentation, all wrapped in an interesting and well paced narrative. Again, like Bulletstorm, it's a pure run-and-gun shooter with some modern trimmings and it's own unique twists, and deserved to be played.

GOOD STUFF.
_________________